I think they're trying to prevent Medium from looking like 4chan or Twitter that specializes in overt personal attacks, hate speech, and conspiracy theories. There are indeed very different kinds of conversation that are possible. Some are substantive, while others are obnoxious, toxic, and ad hominem. A free speech absolutist would maintain that a platform's users should be free to say whatever they want. But the fact is that the environment constrains us, and in this case, the internet and social media seem to bring out the worst in us. Personally, I like the idea of a place on the internet that's relatively substantive and free from tribal name-calling. What I don't like about this incident is that it prevented a dialogue about the substantive issue of "wokeness."